So I’m literally on an overnight bus (gotobus.com) to NYC to attend Fr Larry Boadt’s funeral. It was the only way I could afford to go.
Two of my Catholic Volunteer friends dropped me at the bus stop which was in a random parking lot. I was teasing Christina and Gloria who thought that the bus might not be legit. I showed them the ticket and said “Look, the company is Ocean…because that’s where you end up!”
So it turns out that most of the passenegers are indeed Chinese and this must be an offshoot of the Chinatown bus lines that are really cheap but somewhat notorious for crazy things happening. (which for those about to accuse me of being a racist, has nothing to do with anyone’s culture).
So I’ve been napping most of the way until we hit Syracuse.
A woman gets on with two kids and at first, I have no idea what the hell is going on but she is fighting with the driver about something. The rest of this post is an email sent to my wife as everything went down.
Dunno what’s happening. I’m not sure of the kids aren’t allowed on the bus, if people won’t move so she can sit togther with them, or if she doesn’t want to pay for them. This is all happening in Chinese in I think, Albany. (turns out Syracuse) I’ve heard someone say “call the cops”. Some guy who really looks like the lost member of the grateful dead is here now and I’m not sure why.
Ok now I see. The guy is the dude she’s supposed to pay and he just said in English that she only wants to pay for one of the two kids. Now she’s trying to change the rules and say some other price. We’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes.
So grateful dead dude just calls her husband somehow who he apparently quoted a price to and they’re talking it over and now it seems like she’s paying up. Now some other woman is yelling at her in Chinese…loudly!
Mind you, this is all going on in Chinese at 3am and I’m one of two people on this bus who does not speak the language.
Now I know how other immigrant groups must feel when they come to any country and a bunch of people are having a tiff and they don’t speak the same language. It happens to them all the time. I’m wondering what’s going on. Is this woman dangerous, or just weird? I have no idea what city this is, right now. People are screaming in another language and I just want to get going. Imgine if this was something important that they wanted to communicate to everyone on the bus and I didn’t know what to do? Do I just follow the crowd? Who can I trust? Maybe this woman really was told the price she’s saying and grateful dead dude is putting one over on her?
Ok we’re moving now, crisis averted. Woman held the whole bus up for 15 dollars and 20 minutes.
Crazy. This will be blogged. Fr. Boadt better appreciate this. Actually, he’d think this was funny.